QUICK TAKES

Slowly working my way through Women in Love this week, a Barnes & Noble copy with a (very apt) Schiele on the cover. I forgot how much I love reading Lawrence: a few years ago I picked up Lady Chatterley for the first time and felt within the first few pages that he was making explicit some undercurrents in my favorite pieces of literature, something muscular and dark and fantastically ugly. Enough people have said smart things - and well, unsmart things - about Lawrence, so I won't try. I think I'll read The Rainbow next.

(Though: If this was my old blog, the one where I didn't mind my manners, I'd be listing every ridiculous outfit Lawrence swaddles his protagonists in. Ursula wore canary yellow stockings, Gudrun pale rose - assuring us, of course, that they looked very fashionable.)

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On my bedside table: The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood), No Country for Old Men (McCarthy), some Julia Glass books, and a copy of Suskind's Perfume that I can't seem to get into. I've imposed a new, necessary rule for buying books: only those where the author is still alive; everything else can come from the library. It doesn't necessarily help out publishing houses, but I can only be so virtuous before I'm in the red. (Which is not very virtuous, really. I'm trying to save every penny in anticipation of being even poorer this fall.)

Looking at home dec blogs doesn't help. I've discovered Jonathan Adler (maximalism!), and I've talked myself out of buying about a million dollars' worth of ceramics for my apartment. Which I haven't moved into, yet. (For a mock-up, see my garage.)

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Otherwise - a big round of rejections this week. Beginning to wonder if this January was a series of lightning strikes; it's a little depressing to see so much of my work come out at once, when I've had nothing taken for six months. Cross your fingers for me. I have one or two more journals to hear from before this summer's hiatus.

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I'm putting together my syllabus for this fall (intro to creative writing) - a little early, maybe, but I'm really enjoying it, going through my books and notes from undergrad and before, beginning to appreciate my professors even more. Any suggestions? Anyone willing to share?